It is October 2nd, which just so happens to be my birthday. I meant to do something to commemorate the 1 year anniversary of Pearl Fey: Ace Attorney's conception, but I totally missed the chance to. I also have to admit that the tentative release date of Turnabout Heroine will be pushed back yet again. But, fortunately, my birthday gives me an excuse to celebrate just like I intended to do a month or so ago and a chance to apologize for the delay of the game's first case.

Pearl Fey: Ace Attorney has "existed" for over a year now, and by looking at the thread here not a lot of meaningful progress can be seen, I'm sure. However, the game really is quite different now than its earliest forms from before the idea was even publicly released, so I thought it'd be fun to share the earliest ideas I had for Pearl: Fey Ace Attorney to show how far its come in the year+ its been in the works.

Clarka was originally a boy named Akio Yuusha (Great Hero Hero). Akio Yuusha was overzealous in his kindness to others, outgoing to a fault and the pinnacle of selflessness. In his own right, however, Akio was melodramatic and excessively emotional and far too naive to discern when his help is wanted or deserved. His design, manner and speaking and personality were meant to reflect tropes very heavily present in shounen and Japanese role-playing game protagonists, a cultural parallel to the western superhero derivation of Clarka's current iteration.

Turnabout Heroine existed very similarly to its current state in concept and basis, but wasn't fully developed until Akio Yuushya already became Clarka Kentwood. In its original iteration, however, the culprit was a "girly boy" and distinct opposite to Akio Yuushya. While Akio Yuushya was preoccupied with superheroes and helping people, the culprit was very reserved and fond of dolls. With no distinct motive in mind in the original iteration, however, the sole difference in the basis of the case was that the Seekers of Hope were dressed in baby doll garments, which incriminated the very prim and girly Lexi Litha.

Akio Yuushya was then changed to Clarka Kentwood and given a western superhero aesthetic. The change to a female assistant was brought about by the binary opposition that was meant to exist between Clarka and the culprit -- a boyish girl and a girly boy -- and was played off of for a dynamic and implied love interest. The change to western superheroes was chosen to reflect the character's interest in the Seekers of Hope, obvious parodies of American superheroes, and thus to maintain thematic consistency. In time, however, the girly boy character was stripped from the game, but there were more reasons to maintain the character of Clarka Kentwood than to not and so she stayed as you can see her now.

In the original iteration of the case no detective existed and the role was played by the prosecution. The prosecution was also the first character to be planned for the game. The prosecutor, rather than the chuunibyou syndrome allusions that now play into his and Clarka's characters, was a person who took on a variety of personalities over the course of the game. In the first case, he played a Sherlock Holmes expy, later a shounen hero parody (later played into Akio and then Clarka) and in the final case he would become a parodic representation of JRPG final bosses. However, due to allusions to DPD and the poor representation of the disorder and its tonal dissonance with the game, the character was soon stripped before too much progress was made.

His Sherlock Holmes satirizing was taken and reused as the basis for the character of one Shamus Flatfoot, who became the game's main detective. Shamus is one of just two characters to not undergo any major changes since his conception, as the idea for a Hall Monitor detective was well received and despite his broadening as the character in the upcoming major OP update, he still maintains his position as the Anglophile Hall Monitor who believes himself a Great Detective. This also inspired the conception of Johann Waterson, Shamus's "Watson", and the creation of a detective duo.

The prosecutor's shounen hero parody later played into Akio's design and the JRPG final boss gimmick was kept for the prosecutor to keep a dynamic between himself and Akio. However, the shift from eastern to western superheroes and the JRPG final boss parody is what inspired the final prosecutor, Vandal Fisk, who was also changed for thematic consistency and new story involvement.

Lexi Litha is almost the same character as she was before, but before she had with her a posse of "knights" who carried out her will among the student body and made her a true princess of Japanifornia Elementary, and she was a forgetful monarch who got upset when her will was carried out how she asked but she confused the details of over time. However, in her current iteration, Lexi is a failed princess with her influence over the student body now lost since before the beginning of the game. However, the "knight" character hasn't been scrapped; the specifics of the character, however, and many major changes to Lexi, her character and her story involvement play directly into late-game plot points and can't be elaborated upon here. I can, however, say that Lexi is an important recurring character who plays the unconventional role of Prosecutorial Aide.

No major case ideas were scrapped but just one involving the "murder" of an imaginary friend. It was inspired by a story told by my 9th grade health teacher about how sometimes when kids come to the realization that their imaginary friends are imaginary, they'll attempt to justify their nonexistence by reacting as if the imaginary friend "died". However, if this was the case, the other victim, the "imaginer", could just rat out the person who made them realize that their imaginary friend isn't imaginary, so the cruelly hilarious way I intended to work around it by having the character be a first grade mute who, in lieu of sign-language that she has yet to learn, can only communicate via drawings and some words that she puts on paper, but her drawing/writing is absolutely horrendous, making her virtually incoherent and so in their attempt to draw the culprit, their drawing is mistaken for something that leads everyone to suspect the defendant. But the case was ultimately scrapped due to the depressing nature of the victim, the tonal dissonance and overall a lack of a proper way to structure a mystery around it.

It was originally going to be the fourth case due to its bizarre nature, though the fourth case is now, obviously entirely different. What I can note about the fourth case is that its a flashback case that develops the personality and dynamic between two major players in Pearl Fey: Ace Attorney's storyline and serves as the preamble to a major arc in the narrative -- overall the expected fourth case.

This is overall a fine summation of the development cycle of Pearl Fey: Ace Attorney from 2017 to 2018 and I think better shows the change over time Pearl Fey: Ace Attorney has experience than the OP ever could. I wanted to show this to show that Pearl Fey: Ace Attorney is an important project to me, and I do nothing that I don't think will make it the best game I can make it and I'm glad to have a chance to share that.

Due to my recently-ended grounding, PF:AA had ended up entering development hell. However, teaser material related to the final version of Turnabout Heroine will be released within the next two weeks. Apologies for the wait!

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